Soko Loco is an adorable train tycoon from some prolific indies
Sokpop Collective is famous for making two games a month. Sometimes full ones, too.
The creators over at Sokpop Collective have cranked out a full game, which they sometimes do between making two full games every month for literally years now. Soko Loco Deluxe is a train tycoon with simple, relaxing gameplay and an adorable lofi aesthetic. It also has a pretty jammin chiptune soundtrack. Sokpop’s games are often fascinating little ideas, but are only rarely expanded into full-featured games. Soko Loco Deluxe definitely deserved the treatment.
Soko Loco is a nice change of pace from games like Transport Fever or Railway Empire or Mashinsky, all of which I love, but which can get quite complex at times. The design of Soko Loco simplifies the whole genre down to a puzzle of limited space, placement, and optimization. It only uses four resources and would make an excellent first game in the genre for those introducing friends and/or loved ones to their favorite time-consuming hobby. I’ve played about half the game and love what it does.
Based out of Utrecht, Sokpop Collective is a four-person indie thinktank/brainbox/incubatorium which runs a Patreon that funds the release of two games every month. They released the original Soko Loco on itch.io a little over a year ago, for $3.00, and it has since been expanded by one of their developers into this full release.
You can find Soko Loco deluxe on Steam.
The biggest gaming news, reviews and hardware deals
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
Jon Bolding is a games writer and critic with an extensive background in strategy games. When he's not on his PC, he can be found playing every tabletop game under the sun.